In today's world, police and military forces frequently wear some form of body armor in order to reduce the threat of severe injury or death due to an incoming projectile. Current body armor technology utilizes layers of fabrics made from aramids (e.g., SPECTRA, KEVLAR, etc.), polypropylene, polyethylene, or high-performance P-phenylene benzobisoxazole (PBO) fibers. The fabric materials can be used alone or have ceramic panels positioned between material layers sewn into a vest type arrangement to surround the front and back of a person's upper torso. In the current art, the only methods used to increase body armor's ballistic protection involve (i) adding thick metal plates, ceramic plates, or other hard materials, or (ii) increasing the thread count and number of layers of fabric material. However, both methods increase the weight and cost of the body armor.